The Red Zone

Playing games with us can be difficult. That sentence is true in multiple ways.

One, playing games with me makes the game harder than usual. Let’s say that I represent perhaps seven tenths of one average player. So, if you’re playing Titanfall, before you even jump out of the dropship - before you even fire a shot - you’re at a disadvantage.

Two, it requires Skynet-level feats of calculation just for the scheduling.

Three, our role is largely to be Royal Tasters, or Advance Scouts - whichever metaphor you prefer. So if you are playing games with us, and you like that game, you’re probably screwed because I will see something twinkle in the distance and then I will “flit.” I’m a flitter.

I think the last one is a big part of why Kiko hasn’t really anted in to Wildstar. He has it installed. He noodles occasionally. But he doesn’t do anything halfway. I think he’s waiting to see if we’ll still be there. I don’t have a good answer. I can only direct him to absolutely every other thing I have always done each time, and we don’t rate super well on that scale.

What it’s meant in the meantime is that the Guildfather role - almost universally played by Keek - has fallen to Gabriel. It’s fun when this happens, honestly. As I’ve said, one of the main reasons I like Gears of War is that there’s no slack: there’s no asymmetrical roles, there is only improptu chainsaw surgery on someone’s asshole. Your choices are to do this to someone else or to have it done to you. So if I happen to believe something about myself, as evidenced by the second paragraph of this post, there isn’t an opportunity to indulge in it. I can’t let them do that to myself or anyone I know. And if that means that I have to be competent - that is to say, if I have to shed the carefully constructed helplessness I use to excuse my inattention and fragmentary effort - well, that’s a novel experience.

I think Gabriel is doing quite well in the role, actually; he is wearing his father’s coat, the fingers just poking out from the sleeve. He is learning what Kiko knew from the first - that the Tank is a game piece, with game ramifications, but the presence of the tank extends well outside of the discrete systems, and represents a kind of law.